Sunday, 12 May 2013

No Human Being Is Illegal.

Across the world people are on the move and most are not tourists. As country after country feels the pain of religious faction fighting, in most cases, fueled and instigated by Western military interference, Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya to mention a few, who can blame people for trying to find a better life for themselves and their families. Then there is the factor of the "developed" states, to aid and abet their corporate masters, waging brutal and devastating wars across the globe, for power, markets and resources. Let's not forget the fact that they also install and prop-up vicious regimes that will play ball with those corporate masters.

All this forces ordinary people to flee their own country for refuge elsewhere. People as a whole don't want to just uproot and move across the world, like you and I, where we live has all kinds of ties and associations, culturally and family. It is desperation that drives immigration, Though the corporate West is responsible for vast swathes of this suffering that drives the immigration, we don't treat those immigrants with any degree of care or compassion. As a rule, states mark out immigrants as scroungers, criminals and nerd-do-wells, then herd them into refugee camps and heap more misery on already miserable lives. Immigrants are human beings just like you and I, they care for their families, they fall in love, they grow old, they just want a decent life, but at this juncture in their lives, they desperately need help. No human being is illegal, this world belongs to the people.

Hunger and thirst strikes in the
Netherlands
2013-05-10 01:15
CALL FOR SOLIDARITY WITH HUNGER
AND THIRST STRIKERS IN DETENTION CENTERS IN
THE NETHERLANDS public
indictment against the system of repression we call Fortress
Europe.
About 60 asylum seekers in detention center in Rotterdam,
the Netherlands, have been in hunger strike for four days now. 18 of
them also stopped drinking since Wednesday 6th of May. They are
protesting against the asylum policy that criminalizes refugees:
they get thrown out on the streets without money or shelter and they
get detained in prisons for up to 18 months. The refugees on hunger
strike demand not to be treated as criminals anymore. They clearly
stated they want freedom and protection.

Wave of hunger strike Wednesday May
1st, twenty refugees in detention center Schiphol went on hunger
strike. While the guards brutally broke down the strike in Schiphol,
by putting the hunger strikers in isolation cells, about 80 refugees
in detention center Rotterdam started a hunger strike on Monday
6th of May. One day later, fifty women in detention center Brugge
(Belgium) also went on hunger strike. A thirst strike is even more
dangerous than a hunger strike: the latter can last for 40 days
before people get in a critical situation, whereas a person who does
not drink will be dead after one week. Government arrogance The Dutch
government has shown an unbelievable arrogance in this matter. At
first, they did not respond to the demands of the refugees at all.
One parliament member of the ruling party People's Party of the
Freedom and Democracy (VVD) even went as far as to say the refugees
“were taking the government hostage” by going on hunger strike.

Then, as late as Thursday 9th May, they
“provided” a worthless “offer”. In return for the end of the
hunger strike, the government “offered” to shorten the usual 17
hours a day detainees are locked inside their cell with a few hours.
The hunger and thirst strikers of course rejected this ridiculous
proposal and they will continue with their protest. But things are
getting very serious right now. As of Friday the third day without
water begins for the refugees who have no other means of getting
their voice out than to go on a hunger or thirst strike. Refugees
searching for a better life get thrown into a Kafkaesk bureaucracy of
having to provide proof that doesn't exist in order to get their
permit to stay. Once rejected, undocumented refugees get thrown out
on the streets and get denied basic human rights, such as food,
shelter, work and health care. Racist police hunt them down and jail
them. In detention, refugees are stripped from their dignity, their
autonomy, their lives and their future. Once deported, no one ever
hears from them again. Right now, refugees in detention center
Rotterdam are directly and unmistakeably demanding their rights and
their freedom. The government will have to respond very quickly and
adequately, if they don't want to be held responsible for dozens of
deaths.
Call for solidarity We are strongly calling for solidarity
from our friends throughout Europe. Solidarity with the hunger and
thirst strikers in special; and with refugees in general. The state
is aimed at excluding everyone who is not directly exploitable by
capital. Make it known how this insane migration policy of repression
destroys the lives of hundreds of thousands of refugees. Show your
solidarity by spreading this message. Print this letter and glue it
everywhere, preferably to walls that symbolize exclusion by Fortress
Europe: parliament
buildings, embassies, deportation offices,
immigration offices, etc. etc. Letter removed? Glue it again.
Everywhere.
TOGETHER WE CAN FIGHT FORTRESS
EUROPE!